It is well known that the aroma of a beverage comprises a large part of the flavor of the beverage. While the taste buds sense only sweet, salt, sour and bitter, the nose can distinguish between approximately 10,000 distinct odors.
Typically, covered beverage containers sacrifice to a significant degree the aroma of the beverage when the beverage is drunk while the lid of the container remains in place. Other covered beverage containers allow for aroma laden air vapor to travel through drink openings or other small openings for venting air.
However, because the vast majority of the container must remain covered in order to achieve the benefits of a lid (such as reduced risk of spilling and retaining the heat of hot beverages), traditional lidded beverage containers have resulted in far less of the aroma laden air from the beverage reaching the nostrils of the drinker.